Quando Judex est Venturus
by Daitenshi Metatron
Summary: Who was Yevon and why did he create Sin? My take on the FFX backstory and elaboration on the character of Yu Yevon.
1. The End

Disclaimer and such and such: Yunalesca, Yu Yevon, and all characters of Final Fantasy X are © the property of Squaresoft. I do not claim them as my own. This story is however, my intellectual property. So please don't steal it.  
  
Intro: This story is my attempt to explain some of the unclear elements of the FFX backstory, such as why Yevon did what he did, why the Church of Yevon hates machine, the War between Bevelle and Zanarkand, what pyreflies are, etc. This is not an official backstory, just a constructed and novelized idea based on my interpretations of the game. Since we really don't find out all that much about Yevon, I decided to write this story. And here it is. Enjoy.  
  
Final Fantasy X Gaiden: Quando Judex est Venturus  
  
The fervor of true silence. A simple beauty, so easily dashed in the gears of conflict and death. But beautiful still, perhaps in spite of its fragility.  
  
He stood on the great balcony of the Sacred Dome, watching. The world was burning to ashes around him. Reds and white-yellows of incandescent fire burst in the distance. It was deathly quiet. A hideous silence, one that represents the lack of human life going about its normal business. He saw it, felt it, and as a result, was dying inside, slowly and painfully.  
  
He was a tall man, regal in his simple green meditation robe, yet terribly sad. He was by no means old nor did he look it; his face was the face of youth, yet his eyes said otherwise. His hair was a strange color, a silvery pale, yet not the pale of age, but, as it was said, touched by the hand of the God. Hanging in it and ending above his head to hang slightly downwards were the long ceremonial gyuukaku decorated with the engravings of holy words, beads, jewels, and with the letter Yae at their center. The ritual knife, never used, but proudly displayed for its intricate carving, hung noiselessly at his side. He was pale in visage, but his skin showed an otherworldly play of colors if one looked ever so closely. He had a stately face, soft at the sides and forehead, but tapering down to a slightly pointed chin. Eyes of a liquid golden color teared in sadness as he drew back from the scene below.  
  
Stretching his hands outwards, he summoned the seigan, the seeing eye, and spread his gaze forth. The armies of machina rode on; great twisted creatures of artificial life; of steel and iron, burning everything. Chadokoro, the agricultural district, was long gone. Being the outmost section, and the most defenseless, it had been crushed quickly under the enemy offensive. Not that the city had really any defensive capabilities, it was a place of happiness and art, not war. Now their food supply was gone; the people were growing more and more anxious. The pleading of the people grew daily too much to bear; so he had retreated into his inner chambers to contemplate and pray.  
  
"Ie ui nobo me no ren mi ri yoju yogo. Hasa te kana eku tamae." He chanted the Hymn softy. The words floated through the chamber, echoing mellifluously and then dying away. "Great Lord Ebon, preserve thy people and thy city. Give me the power to bring Your holy wrath down on the defilers of our children." He said.  
  
He wondered if the God had heard his prayer. The Creator seemed strangely quiet these past years, ever since the Disaster. The fall of man, and his fate, was it? He hoped not. Drawing his voluminous green robes close to him, he walked to the center of the balcony and began the drawing of fate. Tracing the mandala, he completed the ritual incantation. Finally, he took a deep breath, and sang the Hymn once more. Then he drew the symbol Fheya in the air, and brought his hands together with a thundering boom.  
  
"Tenrai-Ou Ixion! Incarnation of Thunder, I summon thee in the name of your Lord! Come forth!"  
  
The sky flashed and tore itself apart. Myriad bolts of light burst forth and poured down upon him. He twisted, not in pain, but as adulation. He pulled the lightening within him, and then pushed it outward with every once of his being. The air in front of him began to undulate in a rhythm of coming power. The rift grew still for a moment, and from it rode a great horse, as large as a dragon. It was magnificent; white, blue, silver and grey playing through its skin as residual sparks of lightening rippled around it. It gave forth a cry of triumph and reared its golden horn.  
  
He stepped back and let his body fall away, dissolving on the wind until only essence remained. Flowing forward, he melded into the Incarnation and became one with it: One mind, one voice, one force.  
  
Let it begin!  
  
The combined Incarnation roared in rage and jumped off the balcony towards the nearest war machina. Passing miles in leaps and bounds, it rode on driven by pure fury as lightening flashed though its body. The machina turned slightly as it saw the Incarnation coming. Its dead eyes looked straight at the coming whirlwind of fury. It seemed as though it was attempting to scan the Incarnation; or was it truly curious.? The thing never even bothered to move. It simply turned its triangular head back around, and brought its attention back to the task at hand. Within seconds, its irregular-cylinders of arms (of which there were four, with three long claws apiece) demolished yet another series of buildings.  
  
The Incarnation roared again in anger as it drew ever closer. It finally closed the distance and put its head downwards in an attempt to skewer the machine. Bone met metal, and the Incarnation screeched in pain as it failed to even dent the creature. Slowly, the machina rotated its head back, focusing its three green eyes on its attacker. It swung its hand out, only to barely missed, but just so that it nicked the Incarnation's leg. It breathed heavily, and then the incarnation stood completely still. The machina brought its lower arms together and began a heavy motion down.  
  
Suddenly, the horse came to life. Its eyes glowed slightly, and the smallest spark of light formed at the tip of its horn. The sky above growled, and then flashed. Three bolts of lightening drove down from the sky at a maddening pace and met at the Incarnation's horn. It formed a crackling ball, and then it reared up. The ball released itself and met the machina head on before it could move an inch. Lightening spread over the thing's carapace with frightening violence. It then dissipated without another sound. The machine didn't twitch; it simply stood frozen. Then, it fell forward with a thoroughly satisfying crash.  
  
The Incarnation trembled, and then disappeared into a swarm of pyreflies. Within seconds, they were gone, leaving the great priest of Ebon laying unconscious amidst the rubble. 


	2. Conversation Amidst the Storm

He could not begin to guess when he regained consciousness, or even how he was still living. But as he opened his eyes and felt the cooling wind blow through the surrounding air, he had the distinct impression that he was back in the Dome. As the breeze faded, he felt the telltale heat of far- distant fires, tasted the bitterness of floating ash on his tongue. His will to live felt almost eclipsed by his own sorrow, so similar in spiritual taste to the oh-so-omnipresent ash. It was disheartening, but he knew that if wished his people to survive the terrible days following the Disaster.  
  
The Disaster. Yes. They said, he even said and thought the simple phrase so much, so often. It was so simple to dismiss the sins of the past in an attempt to survive the future.  
  
The Disaster. Our Sin. Our fault. One among many. So many. It had not been so long ago. In his ever-evolving wish to master his domain, man built. He saw the advances of science and the mind, and he implemented them. But the judgment of man is weak; is it not said that even the gods are tempted? So is the will of man.  
  
But with every action, a result is put in motion. In this case, retribution. The Great City of man, with all its marvels and intellectual achievements put the reactions of the Disaster in motion. Man had built his machines, his machine, but he found that the primitive forces of electricity where too small, too.powerless. And so, man had turned to the greatest source of natural power he could find; a sacred power that he should have know better than to touch. The techno-mages of the City of Man had driven deep into the Farplane, that well of souls, and stolen the very memories of the dead to power its ghastly inventions. With the all- consuming need for more and more energy to power the City, the toll on the life-force of nature became all too strained. In that strain, it broke. Suddenly and violently. The backwash of power that emitted from the Farplane overload literally tore the fabric of the land apart, the single continent of Spira splintered into innumerable islands; portions of it actually sunk forever beneath the seas.  
  
One would think that this kind of destruction on a worldwide scale would teach men not to tamper with the delicate balances of nature, or at least, to be far more careful and respectful. Those of the City of Man had not learned this lesson. A new City was built, and its scientists, believing they had discovered the technical error which had led to the Disaster, began once again their practice of leeching power from the Farplane. Those who had no patience for such lack of hindsight had simply left; we formed our own city, one to work with nature, not decimate it through folly.  
  
My beautiful Zanarkand, how far you have come. But to see it all end.  
  
He woke himself from his thoughts as the door of his chambers creaked and without ceremony, opened. He knew that whatever occasion could bring such desperation was, well.desperate. The Council f Ministers stood before him, their elaborate robes seeming drab and dull in the fading light.But it was more than the light. A cloud of surrender hung over the room, and it was spreading, he knew. First Minister Ghen spoke, without a shade of pretense. The man was tired. They all were tired.  
  
"My lord, the Bevelle machina have moved past the defenses of the outer districts. I fear that it will not be too soon before they breach the defenses of the middle districts and assault the Dome itself. Can we not be spared of this.ignominious fate? Please, my lord, let us surrender to Bevelle; before there is not city left for us to surrender."  
  
He began to speak, but at that moment, Lady Yunalesca, as if sensing her father's pain and confusion in which path to take, spoke for him.  
  
"My gathered Lords and Ladies, forgive the harshness of my coming words, but have you lost all faith as well as spine? We stand on a far more destructive brink then simple annihilation; but on the deaths of our very souls as well. Our patriots, Bevelle's so-called "anarchist dissidents" have told us this much: if Bevelle is allowed to continue with her foul plundering of the Farplane, this world will die. And this is not a simple explosion of pressures as we saw in the Disaster, but a slower and more painful death. A starvation of all life. We have already seen its first effects in the creation of the Sanubia deserts. If we surrender, our city will become spare parts for new machine, our bodies their builders, and our souls their power source. Worse still, there will be none to oppose Bevelle's further designs. By the grace of God Himself, we cannot allow this to happen." Yunalesca paused to let her words take their full effect. They were hard words, as she herself had warned, but the truth in them could not be denied.  
  
Standing beside her chosen husband, Zanarkand's given war general Zaion, Yunalesca still outshone him in every respect. She was dressed in the simple fashion of the High Priest's heir, her clear ivory skin decorated with the traditional holy letters of Ebon. As she had spoken, her lithe body moved every so slightly to the rhythm of her words; her slender hands empathizing the seriousness of her argument. On her head, she wore a simplified version of the High Summoner's own traditional gyuukaku, made out of a special ensorcelled material that was said to make an Incarnation, an Aeon, more responsive to the wishes of its summoner, and beneath them, her knee-length hair flew out like the very wind itself. Yunalesca's hair was the color of burnished silver as well, a testament to the great similarity of nature shared between father and daughter. As she moved in waiting for the ministers' response, her molten tresses shifted in the dim light, its halo of radiance surrounding her head seemingly unaffected by the current situation. From her golden eyes, also molten in texture, a commanding light seemed to issue, and despite their ferocity, a certain gentleness emerged. Or a certain pity. She closed her mouth in distaste. Apparentally, she had also felt the bitter ash.  
  
After Yunalesca's altogether vehement display of cold logic, the ministers were subdued. The High Summoner stood up, and in a quiet tone of voice, gave his response. He agreed with his daughter. No perceptible emotion issued from the ministers. They bowed in deference to his wishes, and left his chambers. General Zaion left as well, and he remained alone with his daughter.  
  
She moved towards him, her eyes whispering a thought that she had not raised in the meeting. On that thought, she spoke:  
  
"Esteemed, there may still be a way."  
  
"Beloved one please, I am your father now. Not your priest." His eyes filled with sadness once again. He knew that if they did not surrender, Bevelle would indeed cut a swathe of destruction across the city, and everyone in it.  
  
"I have gone down to the Sacred Chambers, past the Guardian. I have read the Scripture over and over, hoping, pleading for God to send us an answer."  
  
"And?"  
  
"The High Summoning."  
  
"No."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because we would require a fayth of immense size and power to perform such a summoning. I am not willing to sacrifice more of our people to the Dream of the Fayth."  
  
"But might not such a sacrifice be the only way to save them? Is not the good of our people worth the sacrifice of one?" He looked at her eyes again and he began to perceive a certain calculation, a will to do whatever it took to preserve. But he was not convinced.  
  
"It is not simply a matter of the cost of life, it is also a matter of the Aeon itself. When the Dream compel such a great amount of pyreflies to form a High Aeon, there is a possibility of loss of control. I may not be able to control the Aeon, and it may well destroy the city along with our enemies. No, I will not perform such a Summoning. I cannot conscience it."  
  
"I believe that father. But I also believe the risk is worth it. How else can it be possible to preserve hope? Our sin has doomed us eventually, either way. Reparation must be made. Do you not think that Bevelle will continue will its prospects after it has dealt with Zanarkand? After we are gone, there will be none to oppose her. Bevelle must perform her penance; we must perform our penance."  
  
"Do you presume to instruct the High Priest to his duties? I say no, and that is final."  
  
With that, Yunalesca bowed in deference to her father's will and left his chambers, leaving the High Summoner to dwell on the consequences of his choice, both good and bad. The storm was not coming. It had already arrived. 


	3. The Light of Hope

Later that same day, he walked the Dome alone, lost in thought. In the distance, the full moon could be seen over the edges of the horizon. He looked at it shining brightly in the sky. Would he still be able to see it tomorrow, he wondered. "Light of hope," Yunalesca had said. But do we really need to make false hopes where we can simply live as best we can? He hated the machina, and he hated Bevelle for what it was doing, but the future lay as a clouded mountain in the distance. Yunalesca wanted him to climb that mountain and rain down the wrath of God on Bevelle. But at what price? "To provide a light of hope.to provide a light of hope."  
  
As he mused on these words, he looked back to the interior of the Dome.  
  
That's strange. Why is the communication room activated? In the distance, he could clearly see the lights of the room blaring. Someone was in there. But why at this late hour? What could possibly.?  
  
As he considered the question, he had the answer. He felt his blood rise and his head begin to swell in fury. Without any further thought as to where he was or who he was, the High Summoner ran. He ran as fast as he could humanly manage; his bare feet striking the solid marble floors every step of the way, each step sending a stab of pain through his legs. But he ignored it. All that mattered was the communication room. It was almost in sight.  
  
"Betrayer!!!" He heard himself scream as he pulled the quivering minister from the communication console. "Who authorized a surrender to Bevelle?!" His eyes blazed in fury as he struggled to regain his control.  
  
"High M-m-minister Ghen, my lord."  
  
"WHY!?"  
  
"Because he- he said you had lost control of your emotions and were letting your feelings- and your- your daughter dictate your action. He said that surely God could not want such wanton slaughter."  
  
"The fool." He almost started weeping between the rhythmic pounding of his head. "The utter stupidity of it.does he really think Bevelle will honor a cease fire!" He murmured to himself, no longer truly conscious of his surroundings. The minister, seeing an opportunity, fled without any further hesitation. The High Summoner barely noticed. It was done. He heard an echo of moving metal from far away. It was faint, but distinct enough in its sound for him to recognize its meaning. High Minister Ghen had ordered all the remaining city gates to be dropped. Bevelle machina would be in the Dome within minutes.  
  
In pure desperation, he rushed from the communication chambers. He fled through the ornate halls of the Dome, not totally sure in his mind where he was rushing to. But he felt it. He knew.  
  
Within moments, he stood on the balcony. The balcony of the Inner Sanctum of the Fayth, the very same one he had stood on at the beginning, watching the infidel machine tear his city to flaming debris. As they did now, but all the more increased. The fires where greater now, pure undulating pillars of flame and smoke poring from every district. The air was hot with steam and smelting metal; as it viciously blew into his face, he could taste the ash once more. It saturated the very sky, blowing in huge wind torrents like some kind of smothering tidal wave. Only now it did not simply smell of burning metal and wood, but of flesh. The entire city was ablaze; there was no more tomorrow, only the here and now. He knew what he must do.  
  
"Here me Bevelle, whether you may hear with your ears or not. Know that you will see. I curse you forever: I curse your children, and their children down to the last generation. I set upon you such Death that you will feel its spiraling throughout every life on Spira!"  
  
He began the incantation. Within seconds, the seigan was drawn. He cast it down into the center of the city below and began drawing the mandala in the air. Here upon, he set the final letter, that letter which is the sign of mighty Ebon - forever and ever into eternity. Begin the Dreaming, oh you fayth - you fayth of Zanarkand. With that, he reached his hands out into the sky and sang the Hymn of the Fayth - "Ie ui nobo me no ren mi ri yoju yogo. Hasa te kana eku tamae." Once again, and forever and ever. But this time, he wove it. He wove the patterns and the notes, letting them spiral around him like a ray of lightening from heaven. There, he wove the Hymn itself into a mandala. He set the mandala, and with a movement of his hand, he through it into the sky. The invisible mandala crackled with energy, and made itself visible. From the seigan mark on the ground, it too crackling with power, a mighty light gathered at both ends of heaven and earth. With a screech of might, they poured from their respective signs and met in a massive conflagration of spinning white light just above the Zanarkand. The sphere of light froze for a second, then exploded into a gigantic wave - a wave which completely covered the city.  
  
As he watched, he felt the stiffening of life throughout the city. Now, it remained constant - neither ending nor beginning. The fayth, the greatest of all faiths to be ever forged - was complete. Now for the beast. Streching out his mind, he once again took hold of the mandalas he had cast - and inverted them. He reached out into the Dream, and draw it upon the mandala, letting the pyrefly impression sit for a moment. And then, then it was made. There was simply not other word to describe it. In one moment, Zanarkand was dark, even the omnipresent fires extinguished by the spell. Then, there was a clap of thunder, a noiseless crash of sensation and freed energy. With that, a gigantic pillar of light shot up from the grounds of Zanarkand, high and far above into the clouds. Spira's light of hope, just as Yunalesca said.  
  
The pillar of light did not move. It simply shimmered, waiting for its master's command. But the High Summoner was not through yet. There was still one piece left to be played; a little bit of his own invention in addition to the High Summoning. He took the ritual knife from its customary place at his side and held it aloft. It had never been used in the way that other knives were intended.  
  
The Spiral is set in motion. He thought, and with that belief, he brought the knife down into his chest. It was enchanted, so he felt no pain.only a sensation of tumbling into blackness. The Farplane called. But he did not answer. Mustering all of his mind, he pushed the blackness away. He refused his death. It was done, and without another summoner to send him, it would be. Forever and ever, he mused.  
  
The High Summoner discarded all vestiges of human form there and then. Without further contemplation, he cast his mortal guise away from himself like child does clothing. He compacted his form and flew with all his might towards the shimmering pillar of light. The unnamed Aeon would now receive its christening - Sin. As he his fiend-body met the Aeon's form, he felt all his emotions fade slowly away, as he had cast away his human body, he cast away all of his mind as well. For the good of Zanarkand, I will be Zanarkand.  
  
Only determination remains. *** Yunalesca watched the destruction of Zanarkand from the safety of a distant cliff. Zaon was asleep not far from her; let him rest. There would be little more time for rest after this day.  
  
As she watched, the pillar of light that was her father's high summoning rippled with the force of its new occupant. Formerly a straight beam of light into the sky, the pillar now twisted and undulated with the stress of the unearthly powers that compelled it to be. That dreamed it to be. From all directions, streams of pyreflies where pulled into the whirling tornado of the Aeon. It was as a night light by a second moon - and the glow of literally thousands of fireflies. But what fireflies. Fireflies of the Spira's hope - and the instrument of man's penance.  
  
All had gone according to plan. All that was left was to set up the Spiral of Death. It would require sacrifice, much of her own, but that was the price of reparation. It was inevitable. The priest of Ebon would now become his curse.  
  
"Pray, Yu Yevon. Dream, Fayth. Until eternity, bring glory."  
  
She wondered if in the future, the old song would still be used. The meanings of things seemed to change over time, but.  
  
She knew one thing for certain: Spira would never forget her father.  
  
Sacrifices had to be made to preserve the light of hope. But she would make sure that it would be remembered.  
  
"With the Sin of man, as I shall put it in place with the light of hope, so shall you remain an inevitable part of Spira's destiny. As the cleansing is forever, so shall you be, oh curse of Yevon." She whispered into the dark. Perhaps at the fading light of Sin, off to seek the destroying machine, perhaps at the ghost of her father. But perhaps she said it for another reason, one that is still unknown.  
  
So shall you be. 


	4. The Beginning

"And that, as they say, is that." The old man finishes.  
  
"Wow." The boy whispers..  
  
"You could say that. Tragedy always begets more tragedy."  
  
"Not while I can help it!" The boy brings his arm to his chest. It was almost comical, the determination he displayed. But certainly invigorating for the old man. Very much so. He only wishes he could join the boy and his companions on their quest.  
  
"You do that." He smiles, and fixes his glasses. Bother. The snow is getting on his robes too. There weren't many places in Spira one could find this shade of green.  
  
"Thanks for the story, Maechen." The boy says, awkwardly scratching the back of his head as he gives his trademark good-natured smile. His bright blue eyes seem to sparkle as the wind ripples through his hair. Bright gold hair; but much softer than Yunalesca's eyes. And in a.blitzball uniform?! Whatever would possess someone to travel like that?  
  
"No problem. Would you like some more comfortable clothes?"  
  
"Nah, thanks, these are fine. 'Sides, Kimahri's carrying our change. And he's a little.busy right now. Thanks again, though." The boy turns to leave.  
  
But the old man isn't finished.  
  
"Oh and Tidus -" The boy turns back to the old man.  
  
"Yep?"  
  
"Remember my story. And watch out for ghosts. Few things are what they seem. Hope for the best, but.hope and suicide are two different things."  
  
The boy nods and smiles again.  
  
Then he disappears into the mountains.  
  
FINIS  
  
Glossary: Gyuukaku: horns; i.e. the long green antennae-things Yunalesca wears (as well) Mandala: A sacred circle, in the Buddhist tradition usually depicting samsara, or phases of reincarnation. Seigan: Holy eye, a spell Tenrai-Ou: Thunder King, the Aeon Ixion 


End file.
